Celebration - AnnaTheApple

April 24, 2014

Easy Easter

It’s amazing what two extra day’s off can do to your motivation. Getting back to work on Tuesday was tough. It felt like I’d been off for ages. Thankfully we have another Bank holiday off very soon as well. Whew! 😉

Our Easter weekend was quite low key. On the Friday we decided to just have a lovely lazy day. We walked Alfie and went to Sainsbury’s for a few items (read: chocolate adventure). Can’t really beat that! In Sainbury’s we both chose an Easter egg each and we also got a film (Hunger Games: Catching fire).

I went for an unusual egg (a ‘squegg’) because it just sounded amazing. I much prefer more interesting eggs rather than just plain chocolate.

It’s hard to tell, but it’s actually a flat egg. This worked perfectly for me as I love putting chocolate in the fridge. Fitting an entire 3D Easter egg in the fridge is tough, but this slab of choc worked well. Actually too well. That evening I might have stood with the fridge open chomping my way through it. Three quarters of the squegg later…I felt sick but very satisfied. I don’t regret it!

Anyway, Saturday was Parkrun in the morning:

And then lots of jobs. We cleared out some drawers of clothes…apparently I was hogging drawers with my mass of clothes…surely not! 😉 In the end we had three bags of clothes to go to charity, a bag of rubbish (stuff that really couldn’t go to charity) and some bottles for the bottle bank. Love a good clear out! We were both really ruthless.

Sunday we went for a seven mile easy sociable run with some guys from the club. It was just nice to not worry about pace and relax into the run.

Later Ben and me headed to his mum’s for a lovely home-made lunch.

She’s been inspired by Masterchef so it was all very tasty and a bit different (not that her usual meals aren’t nice, it was just more adventurous). *In the posh Masterchef voice* Salmon and cod roasted over a bed of vegetables, all marinated in a delicious orange and parsley dressing, served with pesto stuffed tomatoes and lemon buttered greens. Well I say!

And followed by lemon meringue with ice cream. YES.

We then had a relaxed evening at home in a bit of a food coma.

Monday (oh isn’t it nice to have such a long weekend?) was a rest day. We went out with our friend to Nando’s and all three of us ordered a whole chicken each.

I got a corn on the cob and side salad to go alongside (my mission was not to be defeated. Ben made the mistake of getting garlic bread and mash and couldn’t finish his chicken. Schoolboy error).

I think this went down a bit too easy if I’m honest…

But definitely worth it. Though I felt so full for the rest of the day. Dinner really wasn’t an option that evening.

So lots of food, a fair bit of chocolate, some running and good quality rest time. I do love weekend’s like that. I feel like I need to get my eating in order a bit though as since the marathon I’ve kind of just gone a bit mad on everything. But it was Easter 😉

How was your Easter?

What’s your ideal Easter egg?

Do you have any Easter traditions? We don’t really. We’ll always have a nice meal but that’s about it. And maybe a few eggs…

March 24, 2014March 24, 2014

Bath, Bristol, a run and lots of food

I am on cloud nine right now. Actually, maybe cloud eight. I feel exhausted! But in a good way. I had a mad but brilliant weekend.

It was one of my close friend’s hen weekend (for Americans, I think you guys call this a bachelorette party?). I drove up to Bath on Friday morning as I had Friday off of work and met up with the hen, her sister and another friend. We were staying in the very posh and lovely Windsor hotel for the night.

I shared a the room on the left with another friend who arrived later and the bottom-right picture is the view from our window

The location of the hotel was perfect. It was only a very short walk and you were right in the centre of Bath with the shops and restaurants.

The road that the hotel was on

After sorting ourselves out we headed out for lunch at Bill’s. I went for my favourite: Caesar salad and a cheeky portion of sweet potato fries.

So yummy. Then we headed for a few lovely hours at the Thermae Bath Spa.

Fabulously relaxing. It was like swimming in a huge bath! And there were these steam rooms that were infused with different scents, like peppermint (like being in a big vat of Vix) and sandalwood. Very nice. And the top layer had another warm pool right out in the open with a lovely view of Bath.

After this we hopped back to the hotel to get showered and dressed ready for dinner. We went to Browns where we met up with another friend.

I had a very refreshing glass of Prosecco and a wild boar burger with fries. This definitely filled a hole! I wanted something carby enough for my planned long run the next day…

We didn’t go to bed too late (for normal people – late enough for me!). And my alarm was set for 5.45am. Oh joy. My intention was to run 10 miles, but see how my foot felt and would stop if it hurt. I had planned a route and took a printed map with me in case I got lost. I was a super ninja in the morning getting up and dressed as quiet as possible as to not wake my friend (she was fine with me going out early – I had checked beforehand!)

My planned route had a HUGE hill to start with so I ignored it and just ran wherever. Unfortunately the beginning was still quite hilly but then I managed to find a good area to run around that was flat for the second portion of the run. I ran 11 miles! And everything felt NORMAL. No niggles. OK it was tough and I know I’ve lost so much fitness (from both injury breaks). But I am over the moon.

View of Bath on my run

It’s given me a little bit of confidence for Paris. I only stopped at 11 because I was running out of time. Though it was probably sensible to not go further if I’m honest.

The hardest part? These stairs back to the room. Yep all the way to the top. Brutal.

Then it was a quick shower and delicious breakfast of kippers and scrambled egg.

Loved this. I wouldn’t have it every day as it was overwhelmingly fishy but it was a nice change.

Then we zoomed to Bristol, picking up another friend en route and had an afternoon of quad biking and high ropes.

High ropes were stupidly scary. I was all the ‘Big I Am’ when I got there, thinking I’d have no issues but as soon as I got up the top beam I was shaking, terrified and just wanted to get down. Turns out I’m a bit of a wuss. Quad biking though was more my forté. I got the fastest lap round the course!

Later as we got back to the hen’s house we enjoyed cake and champagne while getting ready.

After getting all glammed up we headed out for dinner at Cuban in the centre of Bristol and met up with yet more people. It was funny because I got huge déjà vu when I realised where we were. This is where the race village had been set up for the Bristol half marathon!

I ate so much I’m not gonna lie. There were so many sharing starters at the beginning. And then I had a huge but lovely seafood soup thing.

Phenomenally good.

Then my least favourite part of the night…going clubbing. Ah I think I’m just too old now. Well actually I never really enjoyed clubbing that much when I was at university. I wasn’t drinking heavily, maybe that was problem.

All the tacky hen do stuff of course

Very loud, sticky floors, past my bedtime <—granny status right there. Not my thing. But the hen had a great time and that’s the important part. I tried to get into it for her sake anyway.

Anyway the weekend was brilliant but I am shattered. It didn’t help that the airbed my friend and I were sleeping on half deflated in the middle of the night and we woke up at 5am with our legs in the air going “what the hell??”. It was fairly amusing.

I got home Sunday afternoon and went to bed very early. But I still need another day, you know? All in all, a truly great weekend 🙂

Have you been to Bath or Bristol before?

Have you been on a hen do before?

What’s your ideal hen do? I like lots of activity-style things, like paintballing and go-karting.

October 6, 2013October 7, 2013

I’m back! Mexico recap–part 1

Hello! Wow it seems ages since I last blogged. Yep sadly, my holiday is over.

I am back in the UK. Well, I’ve been back since last Wednesday but needed a bit more time to normalise back into reality. You know what it’s like. Blissful time in the beautiful sunshine…then bam back to the real world.

Honestly, the holiday was amazing. And do you know what? We had half a day of rain. The rest of the time it was HOT, HUMID and sunny, sunny, sunny. So my fears of rubbish weather were unfounded. Hurrah!

Gosh, I don’t even know where to begin with my recap. I will save all the food yumminess until Wednesday and focus on what we did instead for this post. Though I will say, the food…oh wow, it was so good. So much, so good, so yummy.

We left at 5am on Friday morning to get to the airport and have some breakfast.

Very excited, but a bit tired and dishevelled looking

OK, OK I will show one meal! If you’ve been a long-time reader (kudos to you ) then you know how I adore Jamie Oliver restaurants. So we had to go to the Jamie’s Italian for breakfast. It’s just a holiday essential in my eyes. And believe me, you cannot start a holiday in any better way.

I umm’ed and arr-ed for about five seconds before thinking “sod it” and ordering this beast of a meal. Go big of go home And how I love my husband. He got the same but he hates black pudding so I got his. Amazing. I’m not ashamed to say I cleared this plate all except a few spoonful’s of beans and a couple of fried potatoes. Embarrassingly I wasn’t hungry at all for our in-flight meal (how unsurprising) and had to have it in sat front of me on my little table for so long a flight attendant thought I didn’t want it! I was like “hold up lady, I will eat this. But give me a little time!”.

The flight was fine (movie watching makes everything good in my book) and then we got a coach from Cancun airport to Playa Del Carmen. Instantly the heat hit us. It was unreal.

The hotel was beautiful. It was just amazing. We went to bed quite early Mexico time as it was six hours behind British time so we were pooped! Then we got up early (5am!! Thank you jet lag) and decided to go for a run. Might as well!

This was the hotel lobby at 6am. It was still really hot but the sun wasn’t out yet so it was much ‘easier’ to run in the morning. Plus the beautiful sunrise along the beach definitely helps!

We didn’t do any actual beach running. It’s really not my thing. Sand in trainers and way too much hard work…so we stuck to the roads. We weren’t alone in our running – there were a fair few locals and other tourists out and about so it didn’t feel strange at all. But the heat. Wow it was oppression. Within one minute of running I was sweating and tired. It added at least one minute on to my usual running times. There was just no way I could go faster. Plus it was nice to just run at a slower pace.

You might think I’m mad running on holiday but I loved it! I feel weird not running and it’s such a big part of who I am that I couldn’t not run. At times it was tough (when is running not??) but it felt great being out so early and seeing Mexico wake up. Getting back all invigorated for the day as well was brilliant.

Ben and me enjoyed a lot of chilling by the pool time…

Chilling by the beach time…

And chilling by the bar time…

The bar was right next to the pool and a great place to take a break from the sun. I’m not a big drinker so I stuck to tomato juice (where have you been all my life??), iced coffee and diet coke (my absolute addiction). Ben enjoyed the local beer

I quite enjoyed putting a podcast on and walking along the beach as well (I’m not overly good at sitting and doing nothing for long periods of time), which I didn’t realise would be quite a work out for my calves!

And lots of swimming in the sea!

Ben and me were so cool, we had goggles (damn you contact lenses)

The sea was perfectly refreshing, not cold but not warm. And so, so clear.

We also did a few excursions. One day we went to Chichen Itza which is a city that was originally built by the ancient Mayans where we saw the Temple of Kukulkan – a seventh wonder of the world!

We had an hour long tour and found out so much interesting information – there’s a smaller pyramid inside that one! And the Mayans used to sacrifice people at the top of the temple (if you’ve seen Apocalypto it’s similar to that).

We had such a hilarious day. Our tour guide was a hoot. He wasn’t even meaning to be. He was just was hilarious. We still do impressions of him now. Yep, we’re that couple.

From there we then went to the ‘Sacred Blue Cenote’. Here we got to swim in a crazy underground pool of fresh water (there’s a small hole in the ‘roof’ and that’s it). It was freezing but so refreshing considering the humid heat.

Another day we went speedboating. We had our own little speedboat and there were about 4 others and we followed the speedboat in front but we could speed up and zig-zag which was quite terrifying. Then when we got so far out we stopped and the instructor gave us snorkels and we went snorkelling and saw some amazing coral reef and fish.

Terrible photo sorry – it’s a photo of a photo we bought

Unfortunately the afternoon of our anniversary saw a major downpour of rain. But we didn’t really mind – it was quite a nice break from the intense sun. And we had prime positions at the bar.

For our anniversary meal we chose to go to one of the restaurants that you had to book for in the morning. We chose the Steakhouse.

I enjoyed a lovely glass of Sangria with fresh fruit!

It was perfect. Not to get too mushy, but I do love my husband and it’s been such a truly amazing first year

Right, I will leave it there. I have a few more excursions to talk about which I’ll save for another post. Wednesday will all be about FOOD (and a bit more about my running). And as an all-inclusive holiday, there was a lot of food. And puddings.

Have you ever been to Mexico before?

Have you ever been to an all-inclusive? I had never been to one before and I was just amazed (and a little shocked) at how much food was available ALL THE TIME.

Running/working out on holiday – do you take it easy or carry on as normal? Or have a break entirely?

June 26, 2013

Cake and Recovery

Whew, I feel so much more human after getting some good night’s sleep for the past couple of days.

Honestly, the weekend adventures hugely took it out of me. And, this is going to sound CRAZY coming from me, but I have decided to not jump straight back in to running. My body is literally exhausted. I haven’t done cycling in years so to suddenly jump on a bike and cycle up a ~~mountain~~ large hill is quite a shock to my system. I’m happy to say my previous injury from the other week seems to have disappeared. However I now have a new twinge in the back of my knee but it doesn’t feel that serious. But ice, rest and cake should make things all better.

As annoying as it is, I’m going to take a break from running this week and try using the elliptical machine at work instead. I think I really need to just take some time to allow my leg to fully heal. The Challenge really didn’t help things just after getting better last week. I hate the elliptical but I think I need to do something to stop myself from going mad.

My next race is a 10 mile trail race through the New Forest (beautiful forest in the South of England) on 14th July so I’m hoping this break will be good enough to be better before then.

So speaking of cake…it was my birthday last week and I didn’t really get a chance to go into much detail about how I celebrated. Well I didn’t to be honest. I had the UK Challenge the next day and that went on until Sunday so celebrations were limited. But my amazing mother brought round cake in the evening. People, there is always time for cake.

How pretty is this cake?? It’s gorgeous! My mum isn’t a great baker. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her bake. Ever. I could controversially say I’ve never seen her cook…but I don’t want to incur the wrath of the mothership (love you, Mumsie!!)

But, despite not being Nigella Lawson, my mum knows how to SHOP. And she did good on picking this beauty out. A Waitrose special cake (for those non-UK-based, Waitrose is like the queen of all supermarkets. Maybe just one below M&S Food).

However, the decorative butterflies could not be eaten we quickly found. Very disappointing and slightly nasty to chew. But otherwise, a very tasty jam and buttercream birthday cake sponge.

At work I was also give some very beautiful flowers from my lovely co-workers.

So I felt very spoilt despite having a mid-week birthday with no weekend celebration!

And in the morning (I’m working my way backwards through the day here for some reason…) my husband, Ben, decided to send me on a bit of a treasure hunt around the house. He had printed out lots of different pictures of my favourite clothes shops and running gear shops and restaurants (and hid them all about the place with clues to direct me to them). I could pick and choose what I wanted in terms of spending some money to get some clothes and going somewhere to have a nice meal. There were also little pictures of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and our favourite Indian restaurant so that’s on the horizon too hehe. So lots all my favourite things to look forward to!

From my parents they gave me a Lululemon workout top. SO chuffed. I’ve seen this top all over the Internet I loved the design.

Not sure how much I’ll get to wear this year round due to the weather though! Best get wearing it soon

From my mother-in-law she bought me a Lumie Bodyclock Starter Alarm Clock.

Not hugely necessary at the moment as it’s so light in the morning…but in the winter this will mimic the light of a sunrise and will, supposedly, gradually wake me up just before my alarm. I love being woken up my sunlight in the morning at the moment so this will be great (hopefully!) in the winter when it doesn’t get light until like ~~ever~~ 9ish.

On to some food-related news…stir-fries are back in the game again. Anything where more than half the meal is veg is a winner for me. I’m not sure it even warrants a recipe (basically throw together a load of veg, noodles, chicken and a handful of cashew nuts). But I did make my own sauce and that was pretty tasty.

Lemon Stir-Fry Sauce (serves 2)

2/3 cup chicken stock
2 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. sugar
1 tbsp. flour/corn starch (to thicken it)

So easy, so tasty.

Psst! I’ve got some exciting news which I will divulge soon in my next post!

What’s your favourite stir-fry sauce? I love lemon, but I quite like black bean as well.

What do you like getting for your birthday? I’m not great with surprises so I usually ask for things I’ve seen previously. From Ben I just said surprise me and I was so chuffed he put so much effort into the treasure hunt and in the end letting me choose what I wanted from a predefined list (which he knew I’d love haha).

Do you like being woken up early by the sun? Though it means I can’t sleep in at the weekend I love having the whole day ahead of me and feeling all refreshed.

June 19, 2013

It’s My Birthday!

It’s my birthday! I’ve turned the ripe old age of 25 today. I can now be rounded up to 30. I’m half-way to 50. I’m a quarter of a century old. In my head I’m still 19 though I don’t feel like I should be an adult yet. Do you remember when you were younger and your twenties seemed like the age when you became an Adult. Responsible. Old. Confident. You knew what you were doing.

Hmmm. I’m not quite sure I’m there yet!

Well anyway I’m one year older and I’d like to think one year wiser (ha!). Though I do feel more confident in myself and where my life is going. I’m head of heels in love with my husband, we’re enjoying our life in our little home and I feel happy with where my career is going. So not bad!

And in a nice coincidence it’s What I Ate Wednesday (thanks, Jenn).

Here’s a mix of today’s breakfast and lunch from yesterday and dinner and snacks from the weekend (random I know, but more interesting this way…believe me).

Birthday breakfast: oatmeal…seriously what else would I be eating on my birthday!

This morning Ben had set up a treasure hunt for my presents so I was running all over the house to get my gifts. We decided to do a surprise this year so I had no idea what I was getting. The boy did good though!

For Lunch I went crazy and had something different. Mainly because I was running late and had forgotten to make my lunch the night before but hey ho.

Chicken salad with beetroot that I had from home. With this I also had popcorn and fruit with Greek yogurt (I had just enough time to get those in order – and seriously, I’ll be late for popcorn ). My office is used to the smell of popcorn now…but unfortunately I’m moving into another room as I’m changing teams and so I’ll have to explain my popcorn obsession again to a whole different set of people…

Dinner: on Sunday after the 10k race we had roast chicken.

So, so good. I love the smell of the house as it’s cooking away. So homey.

With this I had roasted butternut squash, Brussels sprouts and watercress (but of course) that we got from the race. And I went back for seconds of the chicken (in fact I’m pretty sure I had a breast, a thigh & a drumstick). It was so good. I obviously had a big dollop of BBQ sauce by the side as well…

Snacks: on Sunday I carved up the beast of a watermelon we had. I can eat a never-ending amount of watermelon. I’ll get full and then 5 minutes later I’m ready for more. It must be the water content. Great for after the race to rehydrate!

Happily I found Ben hates watermelon, which meant more for me!

Running: my running is almost back on form. I ran 4.5miles on Tuesday morning and my leg still didn’t feel completely better. Not painful, just discomfort and it felt like it was holding me back. But I’m continuing to stretch and ice it.

Today’s run (because I have to run on my birthday!) was better but towards the end it became tough. And stretching afterwards felt amazing.

I’m also loving the below yoga moves for helping get back into good shape (read: avoid injuries):

One-legged pigeon pose

Source

This is great for stretching out tight hips and the muscles right near the bum!

Ardha-Matsyendrasana

Source

Good for hips (again), spine, abs and bum, while also stretching outer thigh, back, chest and shoulder. Nice.

Janushirasana

Source

Good circulation stimulator.

Dandayamana Bibhaktapada Janushirasana

Source

Stretches the hamstrings.

So I’m giving those stretches a go when I can and though I’m definitely not looking as good as the pictures in terms of form and position, it does feel good and I swear each time I do them it feels a teeny bit easier (probably psychological…) Seriously though, what kind of names are they!!

Unfortunately this weekend I can’t celebrate my birthday as I’m off tomorrow on a team building event with work. A crazy orienteering/mountain biking/puzzle solving/running around getting lost in Dartmoor thing. Wish me luck. I’m the only girl going!!

My parents should be coming over tonight…potentially with a cake. Hopefully by the end of tonight I won’t look like this:

But let’s be honest, knowing me it’ll be something like that haha

How do you like to celebrate your birthday? We’ve postponed the celebration for a few weeks (as we have friends coming over the next weekend). Our plan is to go for a lovely meal and get a taxi home.

What do you think of yoga? If you’re a runner, does it complement your running?

Do you always have a cake on your birthday? I always try and drop not-so-subtle hints to my parents to get me one…